IBM, UniCredit ink 10-year deal

IBM announced this morning a new 10-year partnership with UniCredit, the Italian banking group, to overhaul its IT infrastructure.

The deal is worth multiple billions of dollars (though Big Blue wouldn't say exactly how much) and spans all of UniCredit's commercial and private banking activities in Europe. The idea is to give UniCredit a cloud service-based approach to its computing operations.

Interestingly, the deal includes the creation of a joint venture between UniCredit's Business Integrated Solutions group and IBM, which is intended to market and deliver IT infrastructure services to companies beyond UniCredit. Its employees will be scattered across Europe, stationed in Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The companies will also establish a nerve center of sorts to monitor trends in the banking and IT industries and identify emerging technologies that will subsequently be introduced into UniCredit's infrastructure.